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A key saying I provide all my clients with in regards to corporate culture and behaviours: a fish rots from the head. Usually this means things like 'if the bo
by JacobAldridge 15y ago
A key saying I provide all my clients with in regards to corporate culture and behaviours: a fish rots from the head.
Usually this means things like 'if the boss is ten minutes late to every meeting, staff will assume it's acceptable for everyone to be ten minutes late to a meeting'.
Given Zuckerbeg's reputation for sneaky behaviour and this example of his PR team, I now have an excellent example to share in the future: 'If the boss uses sneaky, underhanded and/or arrogant methods to launch 'his' business, staff will assume it's acceptable for them to use sneaky underhanded and/or arrogant methods to promote it'.
- blub 15y agoTrue. It's worth mentioning that this fish-rots-from-the-head theory also applies to Google's top management and their views over privacy.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pasbesoin 15y agoI think that was a part of Google's problem. There was a schism within top management, including on that topic.
- kwis 15y agoThis was my first thought as well. Whether they like it or not, founders are always leading by example.
- recoiledsnake 15y agoAt least, I can say I called it, when people were blaming Microsoft as behind it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2532918 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2532918
- bostonpete 15y ago> I now have an excellent example to share in the future Your comment intuitively seems correct, and I'm inclined to agree with you. But I can't help but wonder if you just end up picking examples that support this claim. Most examples of corporate wrong-doing probably can't be correlated with traits of their CEO (they're just mistakes made by inept, or possibly malicious, individuals or groups). Statistically, some percentage of corporate wrong-doing will correlate to some event in the CEO's past. I'm not sure that necessarily means that we can point to those cases as proof that a fish rots from the head.
- zmmz 15y agoSaying that the "head" has to be the CEO is taking it too far. In most large companies, you are only aware of the behaviour of the two levels of management above you. If you see your boss or your bosses boss behave in a certain way, you will think that this behaviour is acceptable. For example, the CEO of some bank might be very long-term, risk free, investement oriented, but if the boss of the trading desk only cares about the next paycheck and is willing to take risks to get his bonus, chances are all the traders will do whatever it takes to get good results without more than a year ahead.
- pstack 15y agoThat actually seems counter-intuitive, to me. I work in a company of about 140k people and I'm far more aware of the CEO than I am my boss or his boss. I don't even know who my boss' boss is or what he does, but I hear about the CEO on a regular basis (beyond just showing up in movies). It seems to me that in a large company, you're aware of your boss and the figureheads and everywhere in-between those two levels are given the gift of obfuscation.
- Mystalic 15y agoThe personality of the CEO trickles down to the rest of the organization. His VPs take his philosophy to their subordinates, and so on and so forth. Not only that, but the CEO's policy decisions directly affect the culture of an organization.
- 15y ago